The Beinecke Library and MSSA 2021-2022 Annual Report, including statistics and selected recent acquisitions, can be read and downloaded here:

Beinecke Library and MSSA 2021-2022 Annual Report

In her opening letter for the report, Associate University Librarian for Special Collections and Director of the Beinecke Library Michelle Light writes

The fiscal year for July 2021 - June 2022 marked a remarkable period of transition and
resilience for the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The global pandemic
continued to affect services as our reading room and exhibit spaces were only open to
the Yale community for most of this period. The exhibit spaces re-opened to the
public on weekends only beginning March 19, 2022, and the reading room re-opened
to vaccinated non-Yale researchers on April 11, 2022. In addition, I began my position
as the Associate University Librarian for Special Collections in Yale Library and
Director of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library on October 1, 2021.

My role is different from that of my predecessors in that I was charged to promote a
unified vision for Yale Library’s special collections to ensure that systems, services,
and operations across Yale Library’s seven special collections foster a seamless user
experience that supports discovery, research, and learning. In April 2021 Barbara
Rockenbach, Stephen F. Gates ‘68 University Librarian, charged a new Special
Collections Leadership Team to plan a reorganization in preparation for my arrival. In
January 2022, after several months of assessment, planning, learning, and staff
engagement, the Special Collections Leadership Team and I proposed a new role for
the Beinecke Library within Yale Library to provide leadership, coordination, and
support services that would align and benefit all Yale Library special collections. To
accomplish this, we planned to merge the Manuscripts and Archives repository with
the Beinecke Library on July 1, 2022, and to establish five new departments to carry
out the expanded mission. Between January and June 2022, staff participated in
dozens and dozens of meetings to refine plans for the reorganization and develop a
new strategic plan.

Set within this context of recovering from the pandemic and planning for a major
reorganization, Beinecke’s accomplishments in FY22 are all the more impressive. We
decided to slim down this year’s annual report, as our focus looked towards the future.